Founding Congress Documents

WHEREAS, right after former dictator Ferdinand Marcos was ousted by the Filipino people’s uprising in 1986, the organization of former political prisoners in the country – Society of Ex-Detainees for Liberation, Against Detention and for Amnesty or SELDA – initiated and filed a class action suit against the dictator for crimes against humanity or violations of human rights of 10,000 victims during the martial law years;

WHEREAS, the 10,000 victims and families of victims of torture, disappearance and summary executions courageously gave their testimony to SELDA which was assisted by other human rights organizations in the Philippines;

WHEREAS, in September 1992, the US Federal District Court of Hawaii, in a landmark ruling, found Marcos guilty of gross and systematic human rights violations and his estate was made to pay $1.2 billion in exemplary damages to the victims;

WHEREAS, in 1995, the court ruled that Marcos must pay an additional $776 million in compensatory damages to the victims;

WHEREAS, sadly, the Manila governments that succeeded Ferdinand Marcos did not exercise any political will to declare the dictator guilty of human rights violations and these administrations – from Aquino, to Ramos up to the present regime of Estrada – did not help the victims, much less prosecute the perpetrators of human rights violations;

WHEREAS, the progressive people’s movement in the Philippines is firmly demanding justice for the human rights victims and calling for the prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators of human rights violations;

NOW THEREFORE, we the participants of the Founding Congress of the International Association of People’s Lawyers hereby RESOLVE, as it is hereby RESOLVED, to support the call by the Philippine Delegation to:

1. Extend political and moral support to the Filipino people’s movement calling for justice for the victims of human rights violations during the Marcos dictatorship, the prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators of the human rights violations and indemnification of the victims;


2. Pressure the Manila government to prosecute all cases against the Marcoses as well as prosecute the perpetrators of human rights violations;


3. Pressure the Government of the Republic of the Philippines to allocate at least one third of the forfeited ill-gotten wealth of Ferdinand Marcos (the $627 million escrow account transferred by the Swiss government to the Philippine National Bank) as partial indemnification of the victims of human rights violations who won the class action suit in the US Federal Court of Hawaii;